presentation rieffel

Using VGI to create a child suitable map

Investigating cognitive aspects in

digital maps

Who am I?

March 17, 2012 Philippe Rieffel, Thomas Bartoschek

University of Muenster, Germany 2

Philippe Rieffel, student of Geoinformatics from Muenster,

Germany

Student assistant with GI@School (www.gi-at-school.de)

Our Mission: Introduce new concepts of Geoinformatics to

teachers, pupils and parents

Supported by Thomas Bartoschek with input, ideas and

supervision

Why maps for children?

March 17, 2012 Philippe Rieffel, Thomas Bartoschek

University of Muenster, Germany 3

Map literacy is crucial for everyday life, school, university,

work and an independent life

Lines up with other basic skills that are necessary

Literacy

Math

Use of information and communication technologies

Those skills are taught explicitly, while gaining map literacy

is often implicitly done

Why maps for children?

March 17, 2012 Philippe Rieffel, Thomas Bartoschek

University of Muenster, Germany 4

http://walrusmagazine.com/articles/2009.11-health-global-impositioning-systems/

http://www.thedailygreen.com/media/cm/thedailygreen/images/green-kids-treasure-hunt-lg.jpg

Why maps for children?

March 17, 2012 Philippe Rieffel, Thomas Bartoschek

University of Muenster, Germany 5

The high school curriculum in Germany demands the

“[..] building of a topographic knowledge base

about a theme-based global orientation grid as prerequisite

for a differentiated spatial integration-related thinking”.

(Core curriculum geography, high school, NRW)

This process could already be stimulated earlier, starting

from kindergarden

Learning to Think Spatially: GIS as a Support System in the K-

12 Curriculum

Theoretical foundation - Piaget

March 17, 2012 Philippe Rieffel, Thomas Bartoschek

University of Muenster, Germany 6

According to Piaget, infants and children form schemas to

impose order on the world

Those schemas undergo constant variation and modification,

depending on the age

Piaget: Assimilation and adaption

Foundation for constructivist learning

Theoretical foundation - Piaget

March 17, 2012 Philippe Rieffel, Thomas Bartoschek

University of Muenster, Germany 7

http://wps.prenhall.com/hss_kassin_essentials_1/15/3935/1007493.cw/index.html

Theoretical foundation - Piaget

March 17, 2012 Philippe Rieffel, Thomas Bartoschek

University of Muenster, Germany 8

Piaget: Advancement through the stages is biologocally

driven (aging)

Newer studies show that maturing is the basis, but the speed

and quality of the advancement are influenced by external

stimuli and experience (e.g. by Newcombe, adaptive

combination)

Those stimuli can be provided from kindergarden on

Technological advancement allows easy to use and specially

tailored methods towards spatial thinking

Piaget - criticism

March 17, 2012 Philippe Rieffel, Thomas Bartoschek

University of Muenster, Germany 9

Newcombe: 4 stages are too strict

Features of each stage are also found in earlier stages

Automatic advancement through the stages is questioned

Environmental factors influence the speed of development

Piaget underestimates children abilities

Theories are still valuable

Theories + Criticism justify the approach of using support tools for spatial learning from early on

March 17, 2012 Philippe Rieffel, Thomas Bartoschek

University of Muenster, Germany 10

The actual topic of this talk

March 17, 2012 Philippe Rieffel, Thomas Bartoschek

University of Muenster, Germany 11

(Digital) Maps are undoubtly important for the process of

spatial learning of kids, starting at very young ages

We worked with several software products lately, even

created some, that support spatial learning processes

March 17, 2012 Philippe Rieffel, Thomas Bartoschek

University of Muenster, Germany 12

The actual topic of this talk

March 17, 2012 Philippe Rieffel, Thomas Bartoschek

University of Muenster, Germany 13

(Digital) Maps are undoubtly important for the process of

spatial learning of kids, starting at very young ages

We worked with several software products lately, even

created some, that support spatial learning processes

All lack the same problem

NO basemap especially suitable for kids!

Motivation

March 17, 2012 Philippe Rieffel, Thomas Bartoschek

University of Muenster, Germany 14

Why is that street

yellow on this map?

I see that is grey

Research questions

March 17, 2012 Philippe Rieffel, Thomas Bartoschek

University of Muenster, Germany 15

Theoretical analysis

How do kids perceive their environment?

How is that perception „stored“ in their imagination?

How can that perception be transfered into a cartographic

representation?

March 17, 2012 Philippe Rieffel, Thomas Bartoschek

University of Muenster, Germany 16

March 17, 2012 Philippe Rieffel, Thomas Bartoschek

University of Muenster, Germany 17

Kids need „easier“ maps!

March 17, 2012 Philippe Rieffel, Thomas Bartoschek

University of Muenster, Germany 18

..that reflect their world!

First thoughts

March 17, 2012 Philippe Rieffel, Thomas Bartoschek

University of Muenster, Germany 19

How should a map for kids look like?

Remove unnecessary features off the map

Use more uniform signatures

Use clear fonts and easy symbols

First thoughts - survey

March 17, 2012 Philippe Rieffel, Thomas Bartoschek

University of Muenster, Germany 20

Ask kids, how they would make a map

Features

Colors

Geometries

Icons

Survey and sketchmaps

Conducted during a stay in Campinas, Brazil

Repeated in Germany soon

Survey - Map orientation

March 17, 2012 Philippe Rieffel, Thomas Bartoschek

University of Muenster, Germany 21

Can you identify the

area of your school

and of your home?

Please rate the maps!

general/orientation

Survey - Map orientation

March 17, 2012 Philippe Rieffel, Thomas Bartoschek

University of Muenster, Germany 22

Survey - Symbology I

March 17, 2012 Philippe Rieffel, Thomas Bartoschek

University of Muenster, Germany 23

Symbols are taken from the OpenStreetMap renderer Mapnik:

https://trac.openstreetmap.org/browser/applications/rendering/mapnik/symbols

Survey - Symbology II

March 17, 2012 Philippe Rieffel, Thomas Bartoschek University of Muenster, Germany 24

General information

March 17, 2012 Philippe Rieffel, Thomas Bartoschek

University of Muenster, Germany 25

General information

Gender

Age

Experience

With paper maps

With digital maps

Survey results

March 17, 2012 Philippe Rieffel, Thomas Bartoschek

University of Muenster, Germany 26

35 usable datasets

Age: 9-12

Gender: 20 f / 15 m

Majority (60%) had at least some experience with paper

maps

Experience with digital map was generally little (71%)

Map ranking:

Survey results

March 17, 2012 Philippe Rieffel, Thomas Bartoschek

University of Muenster, Germany 27

First interpretation:

Orientation along districts

District names prominent on

selfmade maps and osm

No district names on the OSM

excerpt

No.1 Map had a lot of details

removed clarity

No. 3 Map, too much removed?

Survey results - Symbology

March 17, 2012 Philippe Rieffel, Thomas Bartoschek

University of Muenster, Germany 28

Most icons were identified “correctly”, some deviations

Parking

Cinema

Police

Mail

See-saw

Reasons:

Lingual differences

Symbol design / Symbol unknown

Survey results - Colors

March 17, 2012 Philippe Rieffel, Thomas Bartoschek

University of Muenster, Germany 29

Some trends

Yellow for roads (“Google design”) only mentioned twice

Roads either black or grey

Red for borders

March 17, 2012 Philippe Rieffel, Thomas Bartoschek

University of Muenster, Germany 30

Implementation

March 17, 2012 Philippe Rieffel, Thomas Bartoschek

University of Muenster, Germany 31

Create a digital map service

Render raster maps from OpenStreetMap Vector data

Flexible design scheme

Whole world data coverage

Setup: PostgeSQL DB + Renderer + Webinterface

Implementation - flexibility

March 17, 2012 Philippe Rieffel, Thomas Bartoschek

University of Muenster, Germany 32

WMS-like functionality

Advantage: Cater the changing requirements during aging of

the children

March 17, 2012 Philippe Rieffel, Thomas Bartoschek

University of Muenster, Germany 33

Scale

Resolution Extent

Coverage Map Scale

Feature

Density Variability

March 17, 2012 Philippe Rieffel, Thomas Bartoschek

University of Muenster, Germany 34

March 17, 2012 Philippe Rieffel, Thomas Bartoschek

University of Muenster, Germany 35

March 17, 2012 Philippe Rieffel, Thomas Bartoschek

University of Muenster, Germany 36

March 17, 2012 Philippe Rieffel, Thomas Bartoschek

University of Muenster, Germany 37

All maps taken from OpenStreetmap.org || CC-BY-SA license

Map design principles

March 17, 2012 Philippe Rieffel, Thomas Bartoschek

University of Muenster, Germany 38

Generalize the world as little as possible / as much as

necessary

Use symbology that is easily connectable to the real world

Identify important content for children, omit unnecessary

information that obstruct the map

March 17, 2012 Philippe Rieffel, Thomas Bartoschek

University of Muenster, Germany 39

March 17, 2012 Philippe Rieffel, Thomas Bartoschek

University of Muenster, Germany 40

Contact

March 17, 2012 Philippe Rieffel, Thomas Bartoschek

University of Muenster, Germany 41

Philippe Rieffel

p.rieffel@uni-muenster.de

@p.rieffel

Progress blog:

http://52north.org/GeospatialLearning/